Tout le monde will undoubtedly be there - the tout le monde, at least, that counts in agricultural meteorology. The occasion is the AGMET Millennium Conference, scheduled for Tuesday at the Haddington Road headquarters of the Geological Survey of Ireland in Dublin. The names of the many speakers will be as familiar to those acquainted with the field as the guest list at Phil the Fluter's Ball might be to a member of the Percy French Society.
The field, appropriately enough, is agrometeorology. It is, by its nature, an interdisciplinary science, and it was this realisation some years ago that prompted the formation of the AGMET group. The group provides a forum for specialists in a wide range of weather-sensitive activities to come together and focus their efforts to the ultimate benefit of those engaged in the production end of agriculture. They come from organisations such as Coillte and Teagasc, from the agricultural and veterinary faculties of the universities, from various branches of the Department of Agriculture, and from Met Eireann, their collective aim being to devise ways of getting agrometeorological information into the hands of those who need it most.
By chance, the AGMET group came into existence on February 29th, 1984, so at the quadrennial intervals at which this date appears it celebrates its birthday with a major get-together. The millennium conference, therefore will be its fourth or 16th birthday party, depending on how you care to look at it. Let me tell you a little of how they plan to organise their day.
The proceedings might be divided into "AG" or "MET". For example, the AG bit in the morning and the early afternoon, will include Prof Frank Convery, of the Environmental Institute at UCD, speaking on "The Emerging Agro-environment (Weather Dependent) Policy Issues", and "Agriculture, Food Safety and Consumer Confidence" by Dr Patrick Wall, of the Food Safety Authority. The MET part, on the other hand, stars Dr John Butler, of Armagh Observatory, who has done some very interesting work on the relationship between sunspots and the global climate and who will speak on "Global Warming - Man or Nature?"; Gerald Fleming, of Met Eireann, of whom you may have heard, will then tell us about "The Public Perception of Weather".
Anyone who likes can go along at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. A modicum of interest in either MET or AG, however, is likely to make the conference fee of £25 seem more worthwhile. In any event, you will get free coffee in the morning and the afternoon, and if you want to see the full menu, you will find it at http://www.ucd.ie/agmet.